Star Trek: Chimera
by YeredYohanan
Summary: Cheryl, a young child with dreams and hopes is forced to endure a horrifying nightmare as everything she is, that she is meant to be is torn from her when the ship she calls home is boarded by the Borg, forever altering her destiny.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Four quadrants, each containing a variable number of sectors, varying due to the size of individual systems, the present of space abnormalities, territories claimed different species or countless other reasons.

Troves of information was available on some quadrants while others their was little. The size of the quadrants, the availability of ships and resources and the distance and time necessary to travel to some of them a factor.

She her speed was slow compared to that of larger vessels, they moved thru one of those quadrants, one that a lot had been learned about, that contained numerous ships traveling across it at any given moment. Space was vast however, they had come across no one. Those that remained were the only ones that knew that something had happened, a threat that everyone knew of, and everyone dreaded.

They searched for meaning, for comfort in the isolation. They had no idea when they would be found, before they reached their destination, they hoped they would, and hope it was by friendly forces and not by the more hostile, dangerous force that had led them into their current circumstances.

Most of them knew that the ship they had departed from would not remain inactive, even with all the damage it had sustained, over time more and more of it's systems would return to life. They could not dwell on this, no matter how much the danger it posed, their craft had been damaged, they had people in need of medical attention. They had to hold on to hope that they had finally had a turn of luck, and after what they had just gone thru it was difficult to maintain any optimism.

All external lighting had been extinguished, they were trying to make their sensor footprint as small as possible, they would not have be traveling at warp except they wanted increase the distance between themselves and the point of origin as quickly as possible, if they were to be found they would most likely have to locate their rescue instead of being located. This reduced their chances dramatically, but also raised the odds that they would not be found by those they didn't want to find them.

On the side of the shuttle, barely visible unless you were withing meters of it were the marking. NCC 90739 - USS Chimera.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_Stardate 53872.17_

"Hurry up your running late." Mrs. Evans called to her.

"I'm coming." Cheryl said as she ran out of her room.

"Watch out for your brother." her mom said just as she dodged around him.

The door looked like it barely had time to open as she left the quarters and entered the corridor. "She's going to be late again." her mom thought to herself.

* * *

All the students turned to look as the classroom door slid open and she entered, she hated being late, everyone always looked at you if you came in late, she should know she probably had the biggest record for being late.

"Nice of you to join us, Cheryl" her teacher said.

"Thank you Ms. Trinity." she replied as she moved to the table she was assigned to sit at.

She looked over at Megan sitting at the next table. Their class was not big, less then a dozen school age children lived on the ship and the two girls used to sit next to each other, that is how they had become friends, best friends. it was also when that the talking began, whispers here and their during class, they been caught a couple of times, told to stop and had moved to typing messages on their school pads, passing them back and forth when they thought no one was looking and had been caught again. This time their teacher separated them.

They still had free time and lunch to talk and the spent as much time as possible when out of school together, whether it was in one of their quarters or on the holodeck

When lunch time finally arrived, Cheryl moved to Megan's table.

"You were late again." Megan said.

"I'm always late." Cheryl replied.

"Not always but almost, what was it this time?"

She was about to answer when a klaxon went off in conjunction with a pulsating yellow light coming from a strip that ran the circumference of room near the ceiling. The sound of the klaxon stopped shortly, the pulsating yellow light continued however.

"Why does it always have to be lunch when they do that?" Megan complained.

"I know." Cheryl answered.

"OK children lets move back to your seats." Ms. Trinity said.

"But lunch isn't over yet." Cheryl replied back to her.

"Cheryl, you know the classroom rules, I don't need to explain them to you again do I?"

"No" she said grumpily as she moved back to her chair.

Cheryl and Megan had no opportunity to talk for the rest of the day, the yellow alert continued thru free time and when they should have been dismissed from school making it so they couldn't go home on their own and had to wait for a parent to pick them up.

Cheryl stood to go talk to Megan when her mom came in carrying brother,

"Cheryl, lets go." her mom said.

She changed directions following her mom, she waved at Megan right before she left the classroom.

"So much for the sleepover" Cheryl said out loud.

"You still might be able to go." her mom said. "You never know how long these things will last."

"It's been going since lunch." Cheryl replied.

* * *

They continued to move thru the debris field trying to determine what had happened and scanning for lifesigns. It had been a large vessel, the gravity of a nearby planet had made the search even more difficult, the debris had already began to move into the planets atmosphere when they arrived in sensor range. The debris was spread half way around the planet, some of had already burned up as the gravity pulled it towards the surface. The radiation coming from the remains coming into contact with emissions from the planets atmosphere were also causing sensor problems and turbulence.

"I believe we finally know what kind of craft it is." Ensign Caulfield said. "It appears to be Denobulan."

"From the amount of debris it must have been one of their large medical ships." Commander Richards said. "Any information on what happened to it."

"Their is too much interference both from the planet and from the debris. " Caulfield answered.

"Commander cancel yellow alert. Let's make two more passes around the planet, if we don't find anything resume our original course." Captain Simmers ordered. "I will be in my ready room." she said as she moved across the bridge.

"You heard her." Richards said. "Let's get this done."

* * *

_Stardate 56873.46_

Cheryl look up from what she was reading as the yellow pulsating stopped. "Mom what time is it?"

"Too late for you to go over to Megan's, your brother is already asleep and your dad will probably be home soon now. It's time for you to get ready for bed."

"Mom, this sucks. I want to live on a planet again" she started.

"Cheryl." Mrs. Evans said interrupting her daughter. "You and Megan will have all day tomorrow to play."

"Fine" Cheryl retorted stomping to her room.

"Maybe you won't be playing with Megan tomorrow." her mom said.

Cheryl didn't say anything. She wanted to go do something with Megan tomorrow and didn't want her mom to stop that from happening. She got ready for bed, turned off the light and lay down, thinking how annoyed she was.

By the time Chris Evans had returned home his daughter had fallen asleep. He quietly went into her room, gave her a kiss on the forehead and returned to the front room.

"So, what was the yellow alert about?" Jena asked him.

"Didn't involve my department so I'm not sure, the lab I work it doesn't have windows remember thou I did here a rumor we encountered some kind of debris field, apparently all it did was delay us, nothing of interest was discovered." he replied.

He was a Cytologist, nothing about the debris fields required someone who specialized in cells, his work was normally done in the lab, occasionally he would go on a away mission.

"Don't tell Cheryl, she's upset enough already about Megan not coming over for a sleepover.

"She will forget within ten minutes once her and Megan have met up tomorrow." he replied.

"Too true, you ready for bed?" she asked.

"Like three hours ago." he said.

* * *

"What was that?" Commander Charles asked.

"Turbulence from the area has pushed into some of the debris on starboard side." Ensign Willis responded.

"Damage report?" Commander Charles said.

"We have some minor damage to the hull and deck eleven, several pieces of debris have left impacts along the hull and their is also a hull breach on deck eleven, the piece of debris that created the hull breach is still attached to us, emergence force fields are holding."

"Dispatch a repair team and lets make sure we don't run into anything else." Charles ordered.

* * *

They moved thru the corridor towards the area were the damage had been reported...

"You think they would be able to drive this thing by now without hitting anything." Lieutenant Gillevet said.

"Or have waited till morning, we will probably need a Shuttle to pull it out." Lieutenant Tuttle responded.

"Both of you be shut up, lets just get this done." Ensign Guemes said glaring at both of them.

"Your sure a little bossy, especially for a Ensign." Gillevet said as he looked over his shoulder.

"I haven't been her long, don't worry I will soon share the same rank as you, and then you can enjoy all the bossing around you like when I am put in charge of teams." she snapped back.

"Oh, you had that one coming." Tuttle said looking at Gillevet.

"Lets just see what were dealing with." he said trying to change the subject.

It didn't take them long to get to the damaged section. They stood there looking thru the force field.

"They call this minor, the corridor almost completely opened from floor to ceiling by that piece of junk." Tuttle said pointing to the damage.

"Guess , so. I will check the database later and see if they classified it right." Gillevet replied sarcastically..

They put their helmets on, engaged and activated a force field behind them and one protecting the rest of the ship from the vacuum of space that lay beyond the hull breach. Once the area between the two fields had decompressed the lowered the field closest to the damage.

They moved up to the object that now pierced several meters into the ship. The damaged extended almost from floor to ceiling and wall to wall of the corridor.

"We going to need more personnel for this and a shuttle. This is definitely not minor damage, someone needs to have a nice chat with them on the bridge about how things are going to be classified." Gillevet said.

They were looking thru the puncture and thru a hole in the debris that had damaged the corridor when Tuttle saw something corner of his eye. "What was that?" he said.

"What was what?" Gillevet asked.

"I saw something over there."

"Probably just pieces of this thing floating around, or from us." Guemes said.

"The external and internal sensors for that must have been screwed up when this piece of junk hit us." Tuttle said as he moved down the damaged corridor toward the floating debris he had seen. "Let's see how bad this really is."

He came around the corner and stopped, "What the" he said to himself.

"How bad is it?" Guemes called to him.

"He moved farther around the corner looking around him, "This isn't right." he said to himself, suddenly he stopped, realization coming across his face at what he was looking at, he reached for his combadge but it was too late.

* * *

_Stardate 56874.66_

Cheryl moved down the corridor carrying her towel. Megan had called earlier saying that her mom had some Holodeck time reserved and that she was taking them swimming. She was exited, she had expected to spend the day doing something a lot more boring.

She tapped the panel beside the door as she approached Megan's quarters, the doors slid open after a few moments.

"Why hello Cheryl, long time no see. Why don't you come in." Mrs. Shearer said.

"I was just here two days ago." Cheryl said.

"Were you? I'm sure it has been longer then that, maybe a few weeks."

"Mom, stop it." Megan said as Cheryl entered the room.

She had no siblings like Cheryl, it was just her and her parents.

Mrs. Shearer looked at the towel Cheryl was carrying, "I see Megan has informed you that we have some Holodeck time. I guess it's been decided were going swimming." She said looking at her daughter.

"Um, yea" Megan replied let me go get changed.

If didn't take long for Megan to get ready. And even less time for them to arrive at the Holodeck. It wasn't far from the Shearer's quarters.

They entered the Holodeck and found themselves on a warm beach, a slight breeze blowing making the temperature feel perfect.

Both girls started running for the water.

"You two be careful, and watch out for sharks." Mrs. Shearer called after them.

"Their are no sharks mom." Megan called back.

"How do you know I didn't have some added?"

Both girls stopped in their tracks, less then a meter from the water. Megan turning to face her mom. "Why did you have to put sharks in the water?"

"I didn't I just wanted to see what your reaction."

"Mom, your embarrassing me."

Megan turned and ran into the water, followed shortly by Cheryl, soon they were splashing and playing.

Mrs. Shearer sat on a blanket under a umbrella and started reading.

* * *

The turbolift doors opened and some and Commander Richards entered with some of the next shift. "Status report." he said to Commander Charles.

"We have completed our scan of the debris field and are now back on our original course, traveling at warp six." Commander Charles began. "We found no signs of life and the results of the cause of the ships destruction was inconclusive. On our pass around the planet we hit some turbulence and came into contact with some of the debris, damage was minor, their is a hull breach on deck eleven, emergency force fields are in place. A repair team has been dispatched and repairs are under way."

"How long ago did the collision occur?" Richards asked.

"Just over four hours ago." Charles replied.

"What is the status of the repairs?"

"They are still in progress."

"Bridge to repair team one." Richards said after tapping his combadge.

When he received no response he called the team again, once again with no response.

"Computer location of repair team one."

"Repair team one's location unavailable." the computer replied.

This caught him off guard, he looked at the Charles.

"Computer which repair team has been assigned to deck eleven?"

"Repair team one has been assigned to deck eleven" it responded.

"Computer what is the status of the repair on deck eleven."

"The repair's on deck eleven are in progress."

"Bring up the sensor information for the damaged area." he said to Ensign Caulfield.

"Sir, I am able to pull up deck eleven but I not receiving any information from sensors in the damaged area or from some of the sensors in the surrounding sections." Caulfield replied.

"You're sure this was only minor damage?" he asked Charles.

"Yes, sensors showed only minor damage." he said as he approached ops and looked down at the screen, nothing extensive enough to take out that many sensors."

"Maybe something happened to increase the amount of damage." Richards said

"Their have been no reports from sensors or personnel about any further damage." Charles replied.

"Computer best external view of damaged area on main viewer." Richards ordered.

There, stuck in the hull was the piece of debris that had penetrated the ship, it was bigger then he or Charles had expected.

"That looks like it is be big enough to open up the whole corridor." Richards said. "Bridge to Engineering"

"This is Engineering"

"We came into contact with some debris that it has penetrated the ship opening a hole on deck eleven, sensors are down in that area and some of the surrounding sectors, send two repair teams to determine the extent of the damage and get back with me."

"We already have a team assigned to that repair."

"Understood, we have been unable to contact that repair team."

"Acknowledge sir, Engineering out."

"Bridge to Sick Bay"

"This is Sick Bay"

"We have had a hull breach on deck eleven, the repair team that was sent to repair the damage has not reported in for a while and are not responding to communication attempts. I want you to have a medical team standing by in case they are needed."

He waited for a response. "Sick Bay did you get that?"

He tapped his combadge again. "Bridge to Sick Bay" receiving no reply.

He looked up at Caulfield. "Contact Sick Bay." he ordered.

"Sir communications appear to have gone down." Caulfield answered after entering a series of command into his station.

Richards looked at him in surprise, "Do a diagnostic report."

Caulfield attempted to enter a different set of commands into his station.

"I am unable to start run any computer diagnostics." he replied.

Richards moved to tactical. "Give me a status report of the communication systems."

"It's saying there is nothing wrong with the communication systems." the Ensign at tactical said.

"Sir" Caulfield called. "The sensors on deck eleven, more of them are going down."

Richards moved to Caulfield station followed by Charles and looked at the information being displayed.

"Bring up decks ten and twelve."

Caulfield entered the necessary commands, "Nothing is responding at my station." the Ensign said.

"Tactical bring up sensor information on decks ten, eleven and twelve on they main viewer." he ordered.

The ensign entered several commands and got no response, he tried again. "Sir, I am not getting any response from my station either."

"Computer Red Alert" he said.

"Unable to comply, ship wide red alert not available, unable to access main computer. switching to auxiliary systems." the computer replied as the red alert lights and klaxon began.

"We are at red alert." the Ensign at tactical said.

"Only on the Bridge." Richards said. "The computer was unable to initiate a ship wide red alert." he pointed to Commander Charles. "Go to Engineering and have them initiate a ship wide red alert, if they are unable to have them send a team to the computer core to do it."

Charles moved to the turbo lift and waited for the doors to open, nothing happened. He backed up and tried again with the same results, he then moved to a nearby access panel to the jefferies tube and opened it. "Sir, he said. Emergency doors have sealed, we are unable to leave the bridge."

Suddenly the red alert klaxon stopped and the red lights went dark, moments later several stations went dark. In less then a minute every station, every light, every system on the bridge had gone dark followed. After a few seconds the emergency backup lighting turned on..

Richards looked around the bridge, now illuminated by a dim blue lighting. "What is going on here?" were the first words that came from his mouth.

* * *

All across the ship systems were failing, computer, lights, everything except emergency lighting, life support and gravity . Deck after deck became illuminated by the same dim blue lighting that filled the bridge. Crew members were finding themselves trapped in their quarters, at their stations or wherever they happened to be as the systems failed.

On the Holodeck the girls looked at Mrs Shearer as everything vanished, all they could see was the arch, then it went out, a light at the top of it being only light in the room, the rest was in complete darkness.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

She tapped her come badge to call the bridge, everything in her quarters had ceased functioning. She waited a few moments and was only greeted by silence, it was like she hadn't even tried to use the thing.

Captain Simmers ran thru her options, she had already tried the door, it would not open on it's own, she had tried to both push it and pull it open, she had tried to get information from the computer about what was happening, getting no results. Their dozens of other areas of the ships she would prefer to be stuck in, the Bridge, Engineering, Sickbay, they all had access to Jeffries Tubes. Crew quarters however, most of them didn't.

She noted to herself to submit an idea to Starfleet Command about adding them to every room on a ship, it was only two decks up to the bridge, so close and yet so far, she had to find out what was happening, she needed to get to the Bridge.

* * *

_Stardate 56874.8_

They were not at red alert, but that had not stopped Commander Arkano from having his staff working as if they were. The warp core sat at one end of Engineering silently, it had completely shut down. The sequence to bring it back to full operating status took a minimum of two hours, and that was if they could initiate the start up which with the current status of every station in Engineering they couldn't even do that.

Engineering was running completely on backup power and while it had kept all the computer stations panels lit up, they all were useless, attempting to enter any command into anyone of them was only met with the sound they would get if they had incorrectly entered something into any station aboard the ship. He was completely in the dark about what was going on.

The repair teams that had been sent to deck eleven had not gotten very far, they had returned to engineering finding after finding multiple paths inaccessible that lead to the damaged part of the ship, they hadn't even been able to get off the deck, upon returning to Engineering they discovered the door was inoperable.

It had taken almost a well over a hour, a lot of physical labor, and considerable damage to the wall surrounding the door and the mechanism that opened and closed door for them to return to Engineering. It had been easier then if they had attempted to cut thru the door, which was designed to withstand an explosion from inside Engineering It was now a simple task to open and close the door, problem now was that if their was a explosion from inside of Engineering it was no longer possible to protect the rest of the ship. Whenever they attempted to close the door it would not stay closed, let alone seal.

* * *

She looked thru the opening into the Jeffries Tube. Ok girls I want you to go in first, I will be right behind you. Both girls were more then happy to get out of the darkness of the Holodeck. It had taken over a hour for her to find the access point with it being so dark in the Holodeck, having only one source of light. She did not know were it lead and at this point she didn't care, as long as it was brighter then in the Holodeck it led away from it.

Cheryl entered the Jeffries Tube first followed by Megan. They were both scared, neither of them having experienced anything like this before. Once Megan's mom had entered with them they started moving only to get less then seven meters, the Jeffries Tube then went straight down. That was not the direction Mrs. Shearer wanted to go but they were not being given any choice. She looked down to see how far it went, it looked like it descended two or three decks. They had two options, wait here in the small confines of the Jeffries Tube and wait for someone to find them or proceed down the ladder. She was not going to go back into the Holodeck. If they waited she did not know how long until someone found them, or if anyone would find them. She decided they would go down the Jeffries Tube.

She took the lead as they descended the ladder, coming across a couple of access hatches. Both of them had refused to open. When they reached the bottom she had the girls take the lead again, following the path of Jeffries Tube as it moved thru the deck, the few locations they came across where they could have moved back into the main corridors yielded the same results as the ones they come across coming down the ladder. Then, finally they came across a change in scenery, it wasn't much but at least it was a change.

Cheryl sat inside the T junction as Megan's mom looked down both directions trying to decide which way to go, she had become disoriented in the trip thru Jeffries Tube up to that point and didn't know what was in any direction. She knew they had been on deck eight, that was were the Holodeck they had been using was, from the distant they had traveled down she guessed they were on deck ten or eleven but that did not help, she did not know were on those decks they could be. She had never studied the network any diagrams or maps of the ships Jeffries Tube's. She choose to proceed left, not for any particularly reason, it was one direction or other and she just decided on the first one that came to her mind.

* * *

_Stardate 56874.86_

They hadn't found out anything that would help them find the cause of the system problems, every station had become completely useless. The bridge was supposed to be the center of operations of a Starship, everything that happened internally, externally would normally be routed here. That was not currently the case however. They had completely been cut off from the rest of the ship, all attempts to leave the Bridge unsuccessful.

The limited computer systems that they had access to was not linked to the main computer, they should have been able to ascertain some information, however it had given them nothing to go on, the computer did not appear to be networked to any other part of the ship.

Commander Richards had those on the Bridge working to get communications and the view screen working with communications being the priority. He wanted to be able to establish communications with other parts of the ship, and if they could get the view screen working, they may be able to see if their was activity in other parts of the ship. He believed it wasn't localized to the Bridge however, someone would of found a way to access the bridge by now.

"We got the view screen working sir." Ensign Caulfield said.

That had been fast, he had expected it to take longer. As it came to life he could see that it had it became apparent he was not going to get much information from the view screen. He had expected it to still be looking at the hull breach caused by the large piece of debris. It had been reset however and was looking straight ahead and with non of the stations their was no way to change it.

He looked our across the the saucer section outside the Bridge and and at the stars. Things just kept getting worse, she stars were slowly crossing the view screen at an angle.

"Were moving." Ensign Willis said.

"The ship is spinning." Commander Charles corrected. "and we have no control to stop it."

"Any ideas people?" Commander Richards asked.

"Without the computer, even if we could manually activate any thrusters we don't know for how long to burn them or which ones, we could just start spinning in a different direction, or increase the speed that were spinning right now." Charles replied.

"Ok were not worry about that for now, the spin is not causing any serious issues for the time being. I want everyone working on communications online." Richards ordered.

* * *

They had forced the doors to Sickbay open and a limited number of medical teams had left to search of injured or for crew members and have return them to Sickbay and to gather information about the current status of the ship.

Doctor Hammond planned to use sickbay not only for treating injured but as a temporary shelter for anyone that they find, unless that if something had happened that would require every bed in sickbay, then she would have to come up with somewhere else as a shelter.

She had no idea what was going on, had been unable to contact bridge or engineering, those that had been found did not have any information, some of them had been trapped in their quarters and had found ways to get the doors open, it was likely that their were more trapped in their quarters, maybe she should send out some of the teams comprised of those who had come to sick back after she had sent out the first teams to check crew quarters, it would involve destroying a lot of doors, even if they didn't know if someone was the quarters was occupied but any of them could have injured.

She organized three more teams and sent them to work out searching. She was going to need to think of another location were people could go, sick bay was not that big, it would not hold very much of the crew if the started being found in large numbers.

* * *

_Stardate 56874.94_

She had finally found an access point that had opened, with the exception of having more space to move around in it had been of little consequence being out of the Jeffries Tube. They had not come across anyone, she had tried the computer access panel nearest the point where they had entered the corridor with no results. The computer would not respond to any inquires or commands and her combadge was not functioning. It was like someone had flipped the off switch. She had been on this ship for almost two years and had no idea where they were.

They once again only had two choices in which direction to travel, she picked one and they all moved down the corridor following it's path, coming up on another computer panel. She tried to access it with the same results as the last one. At the next junction she choose the opposite direction that the had at the last junction, she did not want to be going in circles.

They still had seen no one, a thought had filled her with dread. What is they had evacuated the ship and they were alone? She needed to find a turbo lift see if any of them were functioning, or maybe a transporter room, but if no one was in there to operate the transporter it would do no good, she didn't know how to operate one.

"I know where we are." Cheryl spoke up suddenly.

Before she could look at her or even say anything Cheryl had taken off and was already several meters ahead of them near the junction ahead of them. "Cheryl stay with me." Mrs. Shearer called after her.

Cheryl came to a stop just before the junction to wait. Megan and her mom continued to move toward her, when they suddenly stopped.

"Come on." Cheryl said. "I'll show you."

"Cheryl, get back here now." Megan's mom yelled..

Cheryl jumped startled, "What is it?" she yelled back.

"Cheryl, run." she heard Megan's mom say, she had no time to process it it let alone act on it what Megan's mom had just said. She felt someone take hold of her shoulder, she looked up to see who it was and froze. Mrs. Shearer was yelling for here to get out of their, but she just stood their frozen in fear.

She had been told they were dangerous, very dangerous. Been told things by other kids that may or may not have been true. She stood their paralyzed unable to move, it took the sensation that she was being lifted up to start bringing her back to her senses, it had started carrying her towards one the other corridors that intersected the junction,

Fear still swarming thru her mind. They feel of it's skin were it came in contact with hers as it carried her made her feel uncomfortable. "Let go of me" she yelled out struggling to get free as it left the junction, she turned her head trying to see Megan or her mom but she couldn't see down the corridor where they were anymore.

* * *

"Cheryl." Mrs. Shearer yelled again. She couldn't see her anymore it had all happened so fast. "Stay here Megan." she said as she started moving down the corridor towards the junction, she knew what they would do to Cheryl if she didn't rescue her. She was only a few meters away from the junction when she suddenly stopped as two more of them entered the junction and started towards her.

"Mom" she heard Megan yell.

She had already turned around and was moving back down the corridor towards her daughter, panic filling her. "Megan run" she yelled.

She took Megan's hand as she passed her moving as fast as she can without letting go of her daughters hand, moving away from the junction were she had last seen Cheryl as the one that was carrying Cheryl moved in a different direction, increasing the distance between Cheryl and Mrs Shearer.

* * *

Cheryl continued to struggle as it carried her. It hadn't shown any reaction to her attempts to free herself or to her calls for it to let her go. They had started to pass more of them, she was scared, looking around at the others she was now struggling less.

* * *

Their had been little progress with communications, several ideas, some of which had been tried, some of which that hadn't, at least not yet. They had caused one of the science stations to ignite in one of their attempts and it had been difficult to put the fire out without the fire suppression system. Two of the bridge crew had been injured one with third degree and the other with second degree burns, they had been able stabilize them for now using emergency medical supplies on the bridge but they would both need to be taken to Sickbay as soon as possible.

On the view screen they could only see minimal sections of the ship they, they could not change the orientation or the location of what the view screen was looking at. Nothing that the could see gave them any useful information, all they could tell was that the areas they could see that should have been litten up were dark and that they were still spinning.

Their had been some discussion about if their was a way they could launch a probe but the idea had been scraped almost before it had been mentioned. Someone would need to go down to torpedo control, manually program a probe with what they wanted it to do, get it onto one of the launchers, get it loaded, manually target it and fire it. Being trapped on the bridge they couldn't even do the first step let alone the whole process.

* * *

They sat in the corridor, her mom holding her, constantly on alert, listening for the slightest sound. They had stopped following them, how long ago she didn't know, she had just wanted to get away from their she had been so scared, worse then she ever remembered being, her instincts had taken over.

She was beating herself up inside, guilt slowly building in her mind, she had left a defenseless child in the hands of the Borg, she had been, was responsible for keeping that child safe and she had failed. She had to find a way to rescue her, what would happen if she didn't was to horrible for her to think about, the things they would do to her, what she would become.

"Why did they take Cheryl?" Megan asked.

She looked down at her daughter, the guilt she was feeling getting stronger. "I don't know" she lied. Megan didn't need to know, she didn't even want to know. She had to fix what she had done, she had to go back, she could not do it alone thou, she had to find help and she had to hurry, before it was too late, if it wasn't too late.

* * *

_Stardate 56874.98_

She stood there in the room, they were moving around around her, only one of them seemed to even know she was their, it's hands restraining her by holding her by her upper arm's, it's hands felt warm and moist on her arms, it was so hot in the room, she was sweating from the heat.

She felt so uneasy and vulnerable, they had taken everything that she had had on her. She hadn't made any more attempts to break free. The environment of the room, combined with her feelings of uneasiness and vulnerability had left her feeling drained.

Two of them were building something together, they had been working on it when she had been brought into the room, it had a opening that led into the wall, like a door into another room, the door being oval in shape. It seemed very small for a room to her, not even a meter in length, she couldn't see how wide the room was, their was no light inside the room. She didn't know how long she had been standing their watching, it seemed like forever. She just wanted to go home.

She refocused on the oval door as the sound of a low hum began coming from it. Over the next minute or so a dim green light began filling the interior starting from the sides and moving to the center until it the interior was completely filled by the dim green light.

Suddenly she felt the one that had a hold on her push her towards the opening, she was caught by surprise and took a couple of quick steps forward before planting her feet in a attempt it from moving her any closer. It didn't do any good, she had been sweating too much and the floor was too slippery, her feet slid alone the floor as it easily pushed her till she was standing in front of the door.

The bottom of the entry way was raised about around a quarter of a meter off the ground, it listed high enough to clear this and moved her thru the entry way, their was barely enough room on either side of her arms for her to fit thru. It then put her down on the floor of the room the opening led too.

It wasn't very wide, less then a meter, she turned to look back out the way she had entered, and saw a door was sliding from the wall across the entryway, she moved to try and stop it but it had already had been closing when had turned and by the time she had gotten to the entry it was completely closed.

She backed up not sure what to do, she could see thru the door, the whole thing was transparent, her focus changed as the hum coming from the room changed and the lighting intensified a little. She felt her feet lifting off the ground, startling here. She reached down with her foot trying to touch the ground but only her toes could touch it.

She stopped rising, the lighting and hum didn't change back to the way they had been before thou. She couldn't keep her toes on the ground it was too hard, and uncomfortable, she moved her foot back up and looked back out the door, she could see they were still out their, she was not sure if the one that had put her in here was still nearby, they didn't all look the same but close enough it was hard for her to tell them apart.

She tried to reach down to the floor again with her foot and found she could not move. She tried again in desperation to reach the floor with no success. She didn't give up and kept trying to touch the ground when something stung her on her neck. She tried to grab the spot out of reflex with no success.

It didn't take long to start to take effect, she felt herself getting groggy and tired almost instantly, then her eyes started to get heavy, she nodded off a couple of times, she tried to stay awake, she nodded off again not waking this time, the effects having taken hold, she was no longer was aware of her surroundings, she had fell into a deep unnatural sleep.

Around the device, the drones continued the work assigned to them by the collective, as it slowly began to alter her.


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Things just continued to get worse and worse, he couldn't see how it was possible that this was all due to a collision that had only opened a hole the size of a deck in the ship.

Commander Richards sat on the Bridge. They had come up with another possibility to get ship communications back, the crew were working diligently on this new idea.

It had now been over four hours since they had lost ship systems, and nothing to show for it, they couldn't even send out a distress call not even with the communications workaround currently being implemented, the range would only be 60 kilometers at best, possibly less.

* * *

She had been trying to get off this deck for a while, she didn't know how long but she knew it had been a long time. She just needed to go up one deck that was all, something that she had thought would be so easy, was turning into something that was impossible. She had only ran into a couple of people and they had no information on what is currently going on.

She carried her son further down the corridor, she knew the turbo lifts weren't working. She had tried two of them with no success, thru the Jeffries Tube's was her only other option. It she was moving alone this deck it would have been no issue, but she was trying to go up and with her son she wasn't quite sure how she was going to accomplish it.

Jena sighed, she did not know either of them would be were they would have been when this all started. She had decided it would probably be easier to find her daughter, Chris could have been sent anywhere, she would just need to wait until this was all over and he would find them.

* * *

She stood their watching as the two crewman worked on the door, trying to push the panels of the door open, this was the third quarters she had seen them attempting to access, the first two they had come across had been empty.

Ensign Olds looked over at the girl seated against the wall of the corridor, she was still looking at the floor.

"Are you sure Sir, look at the girl, I know I am not a counselor but I don't think she is just scared about what is going on I took readings during during that last nightmare she had and the readings were definitely not due to just anxiety."

"You did what?" Lieutenant Noland said. "Did you get permission from her mom?"

Olds looked over at the girls mom. "Look at her condition she is in worse shape then her mom, would you have asked her?"

"You could have asked me at least." Noland said.

"You think this that their behavior is just because of the condition of the ship, I don't, if I would have asked you you would have just said no, even if I objected with you."

"Your right I would have, I think it is a waste of time and I don't like that you went behind my back on this. You know what I could do you you because of this?"

"Yes sir" Olds said.

"Good, but I'm not going to do anything. I used to be like you, I believe that the best way to find the solution to the problem is by making the decision that you feel is right, no matter what anyone else thinks, it has gotten me into trouble occasionally with my superiors but it also got me promoted."

"You think the Borg are really on the ship?"

"With the system failures it's possible but it could be a number of other things also. I will take your word that she girl and her mother saw something traumatic, but that in itself can mean multiple things when it comes to the mother, she could just be paranoid, she could have seen something besides the Borg, or she could have witnesses a child being abducted by the Borg." Noland said.

"I am going to go see if I can get the girl to talk."

"Ok, lets take a break anyways, be careful thou, the last time I approached the girl her mom almost attacked me."

"Just stand between me and her. Your strong enough to hold her back." Olds replied.

Olds approached the girl and knelt down in front of her. Hi my name is Kyle, I was talking to your mom earlier but I haven't gotten a chance to talk to you. I see you went swimming today, did you have fun?"

Megan looked up at him. "Until the lights went out, we were in the water when it happened."

"You and your mom?"

"No my mom was on the sand reading a book I think, me and my friend were playing in the water."

"Where is your friend now?" Olds asked.

"Someone took here." Megan said.

"What did this person look like?"

"He only had one eye the other one was covered by something and their was this thing that was attached to his head."

Olds pulled out hi Tricorder and enter a few instructions and showed the screen to the girl. Is this what he looked like?"

Megan nodded.

"Ok thank you, why don't you get some more rest until we are ready to leave." He left her sitting there and approached Noland. "What happened her? He asked taking not that the girls bother was restrained. 'She tried to get to you when she saw you with her daughter, did you find out anything."

Olds showed Noland the picture from the Tricorder. She has positively identified that she saw a Borg drone. What do you want to do?"

"We have a bigger problem then having members if the crew trapped in their quarters. She kept asking us to help her rescue another girl, I don't think should would have left the deck the girl she wanted to rescue was on. That means we are not alone here. We need to get off this deck."

"What about the girl she wanted to rescue?"

"You heard her when the first found is, it had been at least two hours from what she said. The child is already in a maturation chamber. Even if we found her removing her with the proper medical equipment could be dangerous."

"So were just going to leave her?" Olds asked.

"For now yes." Noland replied.

* * *

She was holding tight onto him with one hand, using the other to hold onto the ladder, it was far from a optimal situation, it has a dangerous situation she had put herself into, it had taken longer then she had thought it would be.

Finally she reached the bottom, she looked up at the distance she had traveled, he had started crying once but had stopped when she had started talking to him.

He was getting tired, it was way past his nap time, she wanted to keep going however, she hoped he would fall asleep as she carried him,otherwise she would need to stop, at least until he fell asleep.

The moved along the Jeffries Tube looking for a exit.

* * *

Captain Simmers was a prisoner, at least that is how she felt, she knew something was drastically wrong, she just didn't know what it was and that was what bothered her, bothered her to no end. Being Captain of the ship she was privy to all that happened aboard her ship, with systems failures this had changed, she stood in her quarters looking out the windows, the ship stars moving across them as the had been rotated, out of control.

"What was happening on the Bridge?" she thought to herself. "Was anyone even alive up there?" She pushed that last question from her mind, she could not think that way, would not think that way. Their had do be something she could do, something better then staying in her quarters. She wasn't being given a choice in the matter however.

It came as a shock at first as it suddenly came into view, passing slowly by, she watched it passed, slowing, she began to feel hope, it moved out of view of her quarters, she could tell however by it's slowing that it was stopping in front of the ship

She had been able to make out the name of the ship as it passed by, it was a Federation starship, the USS Regent. Help had finally arrived.

* * *

He watched as the team were making the diagnostic check to the communications device that had been constructed. They had been forced to scavenge components from various systems across the bridge.

Something caught his attention as he watched the test proceeding.

"Sir?" Ensign Willis said just as we had turned to see what look at what he had seen out of the corner of his eye.

A starship had moved onto the view screen and was coming to a stop directly in front of them.

"Are they close enough to use the device to communicate with." He knew the answer, he didn't even know why he had asked, maybe out of habit.

"We are unable to determine their distance from us." Willis replied.

Attempt to hail them.

It took a few moments to initiate the device, the crew man operating then signaled to Richards.

"This is Commander Richards of the USS Chimera, Please Respond."

They all listened, hoping for a reply.

"This is Commander Richards of the USS Chimera, Please Respond." he repeated.

"This is Captain Proyas of the USS Regent. How can we be of assistance."

"We have had a catastrophic system failure that has affected most of our systems, we have been unable to communicate with any other portions of the ship or leave the bridge."

"We are reading low power readings from your ship." Proyas said. "There is also a hull breech, the object that caused the breech is still attach to your hull, We will began transporting over engineering teams and move the ship to remove the object from your hull."

Richards was about to thank then when he saw a torpedo move onto the screen from under their saucer section and impact an area near Engineering, two more torpedoes quickly followed one hitting one of it's Nacelles and the other impacting it's Engineering section. Explosions appeared along the hull of there Engineering section as a explosion separated the damaged Nacelle from the rest of the ship.

The bridge crew stood in shock at what they were seeing

Several more explosions erupted around the area were the first torpedo had hit, separating the Engineering section, momentum carrying towards the Regents saucer section.

All they could do is watch as the two came in contact with each other causing explosions to travel alone the underside of saucer section and erupt out the top as explosions traveled upward. Then Engineering section then exploded, the resulting traveling thru the saucer section destroying it.

Richard stared in shocked silence, totally unsure what to do, he was not concerned about the ship that had just been destroyed it was the shock wave that was only seconds away that he was watching. "Prepare for impact" he yelled across the bridge, just before the wave hit the top forward section of the saucer section. The ship shook as explosions burst from several areas on the bridge, members of the crew on the bridge that had been standing began sliding forward as the location on the saucer section were the shock wave hit star descending and rear of the ship began raising, moving faster as more of the shock wave hit the saucer section.

"We've lost attitude control" Willis said as.

"We had already lost attitude control" Commander Charles thought to himself.

Debris has now flying into the view screen and wall surrounding it as the ship moved into a vertical position, the Saucer Section point down and the Nacelles up.

Several members of the crew fell from their as the Saucer Section's top become it bottom.

Finally the ship came to rest at a approximately a 220 degree angle.

Emergency lights where now randomly flipping on and off across the bridge, all computers stations had dark smoke and spark were coming from over a quarter of them and the view screen was no longer working.

"Plasma Leak" Willis said.

Richards turned to see were the plasma leak was just in time for him to see it come in contact with one of the the stations that was emitting sparks coming, igniting the plasma, the ship shook as the explosion spread thru the bridge throwing the majority of it's contents and all the personnel that had been on the bridge into space as the ceiling and followed shortly by second explosion from the damaged plasma conduit causing then the rest of the bride to exploded.

* * *

The sound of Bryan crying woke her. She was laying at the end near the ceiling. She remembered the corridor moving so it was almost vertical causing her to fall forward down the corridor, holding tightly onto her son, trying to grab anything she could get her hands on, she remembered feeling the impact as she ran into something but couldn't remember anything after that.

She piked up Bryan who had been sitting next to her am bounced him gently singing to him, then started checking him for any injuries and found herself relieved finding only a few scraped bruises.

She looked around trying to figure out what had happened, the ship was now almost upside down. She wasn't sure which direction she should go now. She looked down the corridor to her left and could see someone laying there around 40 meters down the corridor. She tried to stand and fell back down a sharp pain traveling up her leg, she pulled her pant leg up, her leg was swollen, she touched the area that had hurt and winced in pain. She was sure it had been broken.

Slowly, with Bryan in one hand, she used her other hand to pull and her good leg to push as she moved down the corridor to the person she had seen in the corridor, as she got closer she could see that their were three people. She recognized two of them Alice Shearer and Megan, but no Cheryl. The other person she didn't know.

Megan was closest to her, she pulled herself to her and check to make sure she was breathing. When she confirmed that she was she moved to her mom checking her vitals, wishing she was conscious. She wanted to know where Cheryl was. Finally she went to the crewman she didn't know he was a Lieutenant she could tell from the pips on his uniform but that didn't help her learn his name. She found that he also was breathing.

* * *

Megan opened her eyes, she ways laying on the floor but didn't remember how exactly she had got their, she remembered that the corridor had started to turn over and nothing after that. She looked around and saw Mrs. Evans sitting there holding her son and sat up.

"What happened." she asked.

"Looks like the ship turned almost all the way upside down." Jena answered. "You ok"

Megan nodded as she crawled over to her.

"Where's Cheryl?" Jena asked.

She had been distracted from falling when the corridor tipped over and had forgotten until Cheryl's mom had asked about her. She just stared, not saying anything.

"Megan?" Jena asked questioningly, wondering why she hadn't answered her question.

Megan pulled her knees to her chest and started rocking slowly.

Jena didn't like the possible meaning on this sudden change in Megan's behavior. She had been fine until she had asked about Cheryl and then she had shut down, like she had seen something traumatic. And since it hadn't happened until she had asked about Cheryl it must have something to do with Cheryl. She quickly dismissed this, she didn't want to think something had happened to her daughter.

"Ow, what happened?" Lieutenant Noland asked he sat up.

Jena looked over to him, "The ship almost completely flipped over." she said.

He looked around at his surroundings. "Well's that is going to make things fun.". He looked over at Alice. "Is she and her daughter ok?"

"I think so" Jena replied. "Megan is already awake, thou she is acting a bit unusual, her mom hasn't regained consciousness."

Noland looked around again and saw Megan. "Her name is Megan then?" he asked.

"Yes, her or her mom didn't tell you?"

"The girl, Megan hasn't said anything since they first found us and her mom, would only talk about one thing."

Alice regain conscious just over a half hour later, she nearly jumped back when she saw Jena.

Jena slid over to her.

"What's wrong with your leg?" Noland asked.

"I think it's broken." she replied. "I fell pretty far when the shipped turned over."

"Let me have a look" he said. He pulled up her pant leg and touched the swollen area,

"Ow" she said.

He pulled out his tricorder and started scanning, it wasn't a medical tricorder but it could at least tell if solid structures had fragments. "It's broken alright, we can't get to sickbay right now, we are going to have to improvise" he said as he ripped the leg off her pants at the knee and tore it into strips. She winced every time he passed over the swollen area. When he had run out of material he did the same thing to the other leg of her pants and continued wrapping it around her leg. "That she make it at least more secure. I don't think you will be able to walk with it like that. You will need to hold on to the walls or other objects. I will carry your son."

Alice can carry him she said, it will be fine.

He looked over at Alice and then back at her. She's not in any condition to carry your son right now and I don't mind." he said.

"Why isn't she in any condition, what happened to her?"

He looked at Alice and then at her again. "She saw something happen, they both did. It has affected them emotionally, they really need to get to sickbay also."

She was getting nervous, Megan had stopped talking, he said that Alice and Megan had seen something that had affected them emotionally, and Cheryl, who was supposed to be within them wasn't.

"We need to keep moving, We cant stay here any longer." Noland said.

"We should wait here for someone to find us." Jena said.

"We can't, we have been here too long all ready, they could be anywhere on this deck." Noland replied.

"Who?" she said

"The Borg?"

"Borg? How did they get onto the ship?" she asked in a confused voice. Of all the races she had heard of that was the one that she had hoped she would never encounter.

"I don't know" he said, "Ensign Olds was with was injured when we ran into them, he distracted them while we escaped."

She was now piecing things together, Alice and Megan had seen something bad happen, Cheryl wasn't with them, and the Borg are on the ship.

Jena moved over to Alice."Alice, I need ask you something."

"It's going to be of little use talking to her." Noland interrupted her. "

"Alice, I need to ask you something," she started again after the interruption. "Where's Cheryl?" She was looking for a certain answer from Alice, the opposite of what she was thinking had happened to her daughter, that she was safe.

Alice stared at her with a semi blank stare. "More were coming I was paniced, we ran, no one would help us." she took a deep breath. "They took her, we need to save her."

She had all the information she needed. Panic, anger, betrayal, rage all filled her, their daughters had been friends since the girls had met each other, they had visited each others homes countless times, spent as much time as possible together, she had left her daughter in Alice's care more times then she could count, trusted her, and she had let the Borg take her daughter.

"Where is she?" she screamed taking hold of Alice's shoulders and shaking her.

Noland moved quickly, he hadn't seen this coming and took hold Jena pulling her away from Alice. It was difficult. "For someone with a broken leg she was sure strong." he thought to himself as he released her, she instantly was moving back towards Alice."

'"What have you done?" she screamed.

He caught hold of her again before she could get to Alice and this time didn't let go. "I need you to calm down before I will let you go again."

"She let them take my daughter." she said in a loud angry voice.

He understood what was happening now, when Alice had found them she had wanted them to come with her, to rescue someone who had been taken by the Borg. She had been distraught, her daughter terrified.

They had not been aware that the Borg were on board at that time, were not even sure it was true given Alice's condition when they first encountered her. They had refused to help her. He could tell that Jena was not calming down, he was no counselor but he had to do something. They could encounter the Borg at any moment and this would not be the ideal situation to be in the middle of if they did come.

"Your daughter has been missing for over three hours now, when she came to us it had been over two hours. She was in a maturation chamber before Alice even found us."

"She doesn't belong to them." she snapped back at him angrily.

"No your right she doesn't, but neither does that Megan. Your daughter's were friends right?"

Jena nodded.

"Your daughter's friend saw something, something that scared her a lot. I think it was her friend being taken by the Borg. She may even be more traumatized then her mother,"

Jena starred at him she was starting to come back to her senses.

"She needs help, we can't take her back looking for your daughter, it could do more damage to her then already has been and we can't leave them here. Her mom is in no condition to take care of her right now. I need you to help me with that."

She understood what he was telling her, in time it might tear her apart, but she had to fight it, she had Bryan to take care of and he was right Alice was in no condition to take care of Megan, they were the priority now. Still she was sore, she felt like she was giving up, on her only daughter.

"We can't let them do this to her, she is my daughter. Why is this happening?" she slid to the floor pulling Bryan close to her, tears coming to her eyes, soon she was sobbing.

"I am sorry." Noland said. "He couldn't think of anything else to say."


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Lieutenant Thompson moved into the corridor, the rest of his team already waiting for him, he led them several meters down the corridor and stopped. He did not want to have the briefing in the Cargo Bay, their were too many crew members and not enough space for any private conversation in there.

"Ok, this is primarily a reconnaissance mission, we need to know how much of the deck they control, all of you should know this but am going to tell you anyways so that is is fresh in your minds, keep your distance they are stronger and faster then you, only a few shots of our shots will be effective at most so we will be avoiding combat if at all possible. We do not now if we are going to be outnumbered, if they will ignore us, or what their goal is. Does anyone have any questions?"

When no one responded he ordered them to move out.

* * *

It was completely dark in the lab, Ensign Chris Evans had no idea how long they had been in their, waiting for help to come.

The emergency lighting had come on at first, after a few minutes however it had failed plunging the room into complete darkness. He sat their on the floor thinking about his family, he hoped they were ok, he knew that his daughter was with her friend at the time of the system failure, he hoped that if it had affected the whole ship, or if it was only a few sections and the Holodeck was one of them, that Megan's mom had gone with them so they weren't alone.

Their eyes had adjusted a long time ago to the darkness, it had made it easier to attempt to resolve the situation they were in, up to this point however they mine as well not be able to see anything, nothing they had tried worked.

When the ship had turned upside down it had made the situation even worse for them, chemicals that were stored in the room had fallen to what had been the ceiling, some of them shattering and mixing with others. They had to relocate to a different section of the lab in order to keep some distance from the toxic mixture.

Chris could still smell the odors coming from the spill, he had already been worrying about the oxygen levels in the room, the air had taken a musty smell to it before the accident meaning the air wasn't circulating, he didn't even know if life support was working. With the additional problem of the fumes the situation would quickly begin affecting their health.

They needed to find a way out of their, he had been injured when the some of the shelves had fallen from the floor to the ceiling dislocating his shoulder, it had not taken long for someone to put it back in place but it was still sore and it worsened his mood all the more,

They had stopped talking to each other a while ago, Chris could not even remember what the last thing that was said or who said it. This was due in part to no one knew what to say and in part that if they were short on oxygen they did not want to waste what was left.

He ran thru the contents of the room again trying to think of something that could help get them out of the lab, it did little good. The condition of anything that was in the lab would now be difficult to determine. They would just have to wait and hope someone had come before they had run out of oxygen or succumbed to the toxic gasses in the room.

* * *

This time it gave way, falling backwards into the corridor, Captain Simmers climbed over the top of the door frame and moved into the corridor surveying the are. What ever had caused the ship to turn over had also damaged a section of her quarters all the way up to the frame of the door putting it out of alignment and causing the door to come open slightly, it had taken an agonizing amount of time to get the door free, now that she was out of her quarters she needed to get to the Bridge.

She knew from what she had seen outside the window of her quarters that their had been a explosion and it had not been small, she had seen the debris floating past the window's of her quarters. The USS Regent had somehow been destroyed, the shock wave from it's destruction the likely cause of her ship's turning upside down.

One thing that confused her was that space didn't have a set up, down, left or right. She had performed maneuvers dozens of times changing the orientation of a ship in space and the computer had always compensated by adjusting which way was up, the emergency systems seemed to be working and it was one of the systems that would normally be kept online, since the was standing on the ceiling instead of the floor that meant that system had failed also.

She moved toward the turbo lift that led to the Bridge. With the ship it's its current condition she was going to need to climb down instead of up. She encountered not one person as she moved thru the corridor. She assumed that most of the crew were trapped in their quarters like she had been, those who had not been or had been able to get out were probably in a mack shift shelter locations around the ship.

She arrived at the turbo lift, it's doors sealed, she tried to get into a position in which she could push the doors open with no success, it was impossible from what had been the ceiling of the corridor, she had to find another way.

* * *

_Stardate 56875.33_

The firefight seemed like it had gone on forever, for some of them things seemed to move in slow motion. It had only taken seconds to put their opponents out of commission. They had made sure that their shots had counted, none of them had wanted to see a Borg in their survey of the ship let alone get into combat with one. They wanted the fight to be over as fast as possible, they knew that their victory would be short lived.

Lieutenant Thompson knew that they would now be considered a threat and more would eventually arrive, the question was from which direction and how much time did they have. If they kept moving they might get lucky and be able to keep ahead of the any drones

They were now moving thru areas of the ship that had been assimilated, Thompson didn't know if some of the Borg technology that could be seen lining the corridors provided the Borg with information about their location, he hoped not.

He was thinking that it might be time for them to head back. They had only found a few crew members since the had left the cargo bay and once they had enter the sections of the ship that had been assimilated they hadn't encountered anyone except Borg and now with the likelihood of more drones converging on them. The tactical situation was not in their favor. He decided it was time return to the cargo bay.

He gave the order for them to do a brief reconnaissance of the area. They needed to find the best route back, going the way they had come would not be the best option, if they returned the way they had come their was a higher chance of another encounter.

His team had already spread out and began exploring, none going far, checking the adjoining rooms, once they had reported back he would determine the best path they should follow back to the cargo bay.

"Sir, you need to see this." one of his team said called to him. He moved in the direction the voice had come from. Two crew members were standing in front of some what looked like to him a window. He approached and looked at what the two were, it wasn't a window, thru the transparent material he could make out a female child around the age of ten, it appeared she was suspended in the air by some kind of stasis field, he could see some implants attached to her chest and abdomen.

Ensign Fowler he called out into the room he had just come from, when she didn't respond her ordered one of the crew members with him to go find her, it only took a couple of minutes before she entered the room, what she saw thru her off guard, frightened her. She had heard about them back at the academy, she never thought she would see a real one.

"I want a status report on her condition, everything you can find out, and I want it as fast as possible, we are sitting ducks here." Thompson ordered.

Fowler pulled out her Tricorder walking up to the Borg Maturation Chamber and began taking readings, reporting as the information came across the display of the Tricorder." She is human, age nine or ten, nanoprobes have been introduced into her body, her spleen and liver have been replaced by artificial organs, she has a number external implants around the trunk of her body, their are also some irregularities in her DNA, it looks like the nanoprobes are altering it."

"Can she be removed safely?" he asked. He did not intend to leave anyone behind to the Borg if he could help it, especially a innocent child.

"I am not reading anything that would make me believe that she would be in any immediate danger if removed her, however I must make note that we do not have access to sickbay. I do not have the necessary tools or knowledge to remove the Borg technology that is already a part of her."

"I want her out of their." Thompson ordered. "And do it as fast as you safely can." They had spent a lot longer then he had planned, he wondered if this was a good idea, taking the time to free the girl. If the Borg came he may lose more to the Borg, making his decision a very bad decision.

Removing her didn't take as long as he thought it would, this may have been the first time he had seen a Maturation Chamber but Ensigns Fowler's Tricorder appeared to know exactly what do to and in a matter of minutes the door had been opened and another security officer helped take hold of her before she could fall to what normally would have been the top of the Maturation Chamber.

"Any unforeseen problems?" Thompson asked after they laid her down and Fowler was scanning her again.

"None that I can see." Fowler replied.

"She's your patient then Ensign. Let's move people, time isn't on or side." he said.

This caught her a little off guard, her medical training was that of a field medic used on away mission, the times she had ever had a patient was short term, very short term, she stabilized them and they were transported to sick bay, she had never been told that someone was her patient, never even thought someone would and even if she had thought someone would have given her patient, she never in a million years have thought it was a child taken from a Borg Maturation Chamber.

* * *

With the current status of sick bay it didn't matter that only a few of the crew had come, it was actually good that only a few had come and none of them serious injured, she had no biobeds, things were thrown all over the place, if she needed to find something it could take forever. Maybe their is another location nearby that the crew are going to, which was good if it was true, she didn't think it was thou, the teams that had been sent out would have found it.

The teams had been unable to travel any farther in any direction, they had come back with the news that they were trapped on this deck. That news had made another of her plans difficult, she was trying to thinks of a place big enough to act as a alternate sick bay if needed, if they were stuck on this deck she was not sure where that could be.

She heard a clang sound and looked up to see what had caused it. A canister had started rolling and fell from a cabinet, great she thought looking at were it had fallen from, it had been in front of another canister, she saw it too late however. The failing hit the corner of a small metal shelf that lay on it's side, the spark created from the impact was small, not small enough to prevent it from reacting with the gas coming from the damaged seal of the canister on the shelf.

The explosion caused the walls separating Sick Bay from the corridor to buckle and cracked, flames shooting into the corridor, the second blast completely annihilated the wall leaving nothing but charred walls in Sick Bay and the corridor. .


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

_Stardate 56875.39_

Captain Simmers stood on the ladder a few meters below the Bridge, she was so close but she could go no further. The emergency doors in the Jeffries Tube that led to the bridge were closed. Her attempts to open were fruitless, she had no choice she was going to need to climb back up to deck two make her way to the other side and climb back down and try the other access point.

* * *

She sat their as silently as possible. She had expected them to be back to the cargo bay by now. The tactical situation had change somewhat. The Borg had moved into areas that they hadn't been before. They had been forced to find alternate routes and it was not going well.

A team had gone ahead to scout out the area in an attempt to find away thru, it would be easier for a smaller team to move around and not be detected then it would for all of them.

She looked down at the girl sitting next to her, her light greyish skin contrasting with the remainder of the group, she pulled blanket back around the girls shoulders, that they had come across it in one of the crew quarters that had been forced open by the Borg.

The girl had not said anything since she had regained consciousness. Most of the time she just starred straight ahead. She had been going thru all the information she could find in the tricorder on the assimilation process, she was trying to find a way to at least slow down the changes happening to her.

She had been unable to keep her sedated. When she first regained conscious she sedated her. It should have lasted 3 to 4 hours, she had regained conscious in just over a hour. She increased the dosage and sedated her again, this time however it lasted barely a half hour, she increased the dosage again as high as she was willing to risk for a child her size, the girl looked to be getting tired but never became fully sedated, she had adapted to the sedative and within fifteen minutes she appeared to be fully conscious again so she gave up on trying to sedate her, she hadn't attempted anything that made her believe the was a threat anyways.

The tricorder scans showed showed that the nanoprobes continued to assimilate her even thou she was no longer in the Maturation Chamber, information from the most recent scan showed the nanoprobes had constructed more external implants, she now had more then a dozen at various locations across her body, implants now also lined the interior walls of her heart and lungs. Both sets of organs now appeared to work better then normal for someone her age.

* * *

They crouched behind the two tables they had moved to this side of the lab, it had taken a while to get everything set up and ready in the dark. What they were about to do was dangerous, it all came down to relying on the ships emergency fire suppression system, they knew that some of the emergency systems were still functioning, so it was possible that this one was also.

By starting a fire in the lab they hoped that the emergency systems would be able to determine that their were members of the crew in the lab and open the doors, it was a dangerous plan, if the system didn't work they would have a fire to deal with, it would be emitting toxic chemicals on top of the ones already being emitted, they were out of time however, soon they would all succumb to the effects of the toxins already in the air.

One of them threw a beaker thru the air towards a predesignated location, they all closed their eyes and turned away as the explosion filled the room with light, a strong sudden rush of air started blowing toward the source of the explosion.

Ensign Evans could hear people screaming, it took a moment for his vision to clear after the explosion, he only could see what was going on for a few seconds as the fire went out shortly after be could see again, a few meters beyond where the fire had been a hole had been blown in the hull. He was now sure they didn't stand a chance, he didn't know if anyone had but those who hadn't been sucked out the hull breach would soon suffocate, even if the life support system was functioning the air was being removed from the room faster then it would be replaced.

Suddenly a dim blue light filled the room and the air calmed down, they could hear the life support system was still working, it was now compensating for the amount of air lost thru the breach. He looked over at the breach and breathed a sigh of relief, an emergency force field had engaged over the opening. Before it had however it a lot of contents of the room had been sucked into space, including the source of the original toxin that had been filling the room.

Now able to see, they began to check and see if anyone had been lost.

* * *

Jena gently stroked her hair as her head lay in her lap. She had been so worried when she had found out that Cheryl had been captured by the Borg, she was relieved it wasn't true, part of her was still upset with both Lieutenant Noland and with Alice about the whole thing, but those feeling had started going away. She was just glad that her daughter was safe.

Her eyes open and she looked down at her, she just wanted to watch her as she slept, their was something wrong, that wasn't her daughter sleeping on her lap. She quickly stood up trying to figure out what was happening.

Megan fell to the ground, opening her eyes not understanding what had happened, then someone grabbed her, their was some yelling as someone shook her. She squinted, trying to see who it was thru the stars that still filled her vision and saw it was Mrs. Evans. She just stood their watching her scream at her and shake her. Suddenly a beam of energy hit Mrs. Evans, she looked over to see where it had come from.

* * *

Lieutenant Noland place the phaser back away, he was glad he had been able to get a hold of one, he didn't know what to think of the group he was stuck with, he felt really bad for Megan, she was already going thru enough, she didn't need her mom and her friends mom acting like idiots. He had told them that if they caused any problems he would use it on them.

This had kept Megan's mom relatively calm, she actually seemed to be pulling out of the grief she had been in when they had encountered each other. It was fortunate she didn't see what had just happened. She had been having trouble sleeping, nightmares she said and he had given her a sedative, higher then she had wanted but she didn't know that, she had not gotten sleep for any long period of time for as long as he could remember. She still wouldn't walk for another hour or so.

He went over to Megan. "You ok?" he asked.

She just sat their where she had fallen looking at Jena. From what he could tell she was ready to jump out of the way if she came at her.

He sighed, now he was going to have to watch Megan and Jena's son, he couldn't trust Jena now and even thou Megan's mom was getting better he still had his concerns about her.

* * *

They stood back as the explosive went off, the hatch slowly floated away. They moved out of the opening one at a time, stepping onto the hull. They had a long ways to go and with the magnetic boots on, it would seem even longer having to lift your foot that was connected to the hull and make sure it was firmly attached again before you lifted the other if you didn't want to fly off into space.

They had left the ship by the hatch that was the closest to were they wanted to go, they would survey the areas of the hull for any clues or information as they proceeded, their helmets were recording everything so if they missed something it could be reviewed when they got back. How they were going to get back in was going to be a problem, but not a immediate one, they didn't need to worry about that until they had returned.

* * *

She looked around to make sure the coast was clear. She had to be extra careful, she didn't have any weapons, she couldn't even gain access to any, she had tried. When she first saw the Borg were on board she had immediately attempted to get any kind of weapon she could to no avail, they were all completely secured.

She had changed decks numerous times, she was trying to get to sick bay, if anyone had gone anywhere it had to have been their, she had not seen anyone in hours, at one point she had come across the Borg and could not think of another route, she had hoped what she had heard was true and cautiously walked thru them. It was like she was invisible, they didn't even look at her.

Michelle Trinity didn't know everything about the Borg, but she knew enough, she had studied about them in school before becoming a teacher and they were required to keep up to date on current events which meant once a year she had to go to several conference sessions and sometimes, not every year but sometimes one of the conferences was about the Borg.

She moved down the hallway with eagerness, she was desperate to have someone to talk to, anyone. She came around the corner to the corridor and her mouthed dropped, the wall separating the corridor and sick bay was gone, all of sickbay and 15 meters of corridor were pitch black and their was no sign of anyone.

She had never heard of the Borg doing something like this. Maybe the Borg had taken sickbay and members of the crew had done this to destroy them.

She wished she knew what she was supposed to now, it looked like she would need to get to Engineering and she had no idea how long that would take, she would have to backtrack and go up several decks to get their.

Hopefully once she got there she would find others.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

They had lost three crew members when the explosion breached the hull, they all knew their were dangers with the plan, knew that it might not succeed. Even knowing that it lowered everyone's mood when it failed.

There had been some good from what had happened but it didn't even come close to compensating for the bad. They were still trapped, they were three crew members less then before, they were pretty much were they had been before.

* * *

_Stardate 56875.57_

The second security officer quietly entered the corridor from the Jeffries Tube followed shortly by a third. They all had the phaser rifles raised, the first one signaled them so they knew where he had heard the nice from, the them slowly moved toward the junction. One of them slowly looked around the corner and took note of what he saw, their were several people in the corridor several meters down, all but one of them was seated.

He signaled the other two that they were not hostile and all three of them lowered their weapons , one of them proceeded back to the Jeffries Tube to report what they had found and the other two entered the junction.

* * *

They all looked startled as the two security officers enter the junction, Lieutenant Noland regained composure quickly and walked down to the security officers.

"I am so glad to see you guys." we have had problem after problem.

"Have you encountered any Borg on this deck?" one of them inquired.

"No, I don't think their are any, we have been in this corridor for quite some time." He saw movement down the corridor and looked to see more security officers coming from the Jeffries Tube. "Do you have any medical personnel with you?" he asked. "The three others I am with are experience various forms of stress or guilt."

"We do one, she will be up shortly and I will have her go take a look at them."

* * *

Jena watched as Noland spoke to the others, she didn't dare follow him. He had made it clear that if she tried to hurt the girl again he would stun her again. She was not even sure why she had done what she done, she recalled that she had been having a nightmare and believed that was why she had behaved that way.

She had tried to apologize to Megan but anytime she tried to get close she would quickly move away. She felt really bad, she didn't mean to scare her that bad, this whole thing was caused her to be under a lot of stress, has caused them all to be under a lot of stress.

* * *

He watched as the last of them came out of the Jeffries Tube, noting that the had a child with them. Another of the security agents returned down the corridor to talk to a women standing next to the child, she must be the medical specialist he thought.

His eyes wandered to the child for a moment and he starred at her, she was wrapped in a blanket, starring at the facing wall of the corridor, she was missing some of her hair and had greyish color of her skin.

He quickly moved down the corridor. We have a problem." he said.

Fowler followed his gaze to what he was looking at. "We are already aware of the situation with the child." Ensign Fowler in a slightly annoyed voice, thinking that he was referring to the child as a problem.

"That's not what I am talking about." he responded. "I have that child's mother with me."

Fowler looked at him. She had not been expecting this twist of events.

"She is very distraught." he continued. "She knows that the Borg captured her daughter. If she see's her like this I don't know what her reaction will be."

Fowler gave him a troubled look, she was not quite sure what to do, she technically was responsible for the girl. She knew about the two women that were only a short distance away, that they were having emotional issues and now she finds out one of them is this girl's mom.

She didn't know how the girl would react to seeing her mother. She didn't how the girl's mom would react to seeing her daughter this way.

"Lieutenant" she called over to Thompson.

Lieutenant Thompson came over to her.

"Sir we have found the girl's mother, she is suffering from emotional issues, I have not have had the opportunity yet to talk to her. Sir I cannot allow the girl and her mom to come see each other, not till I know more about the mom's condition"

Thompson nodded. "I'm leaving the situation to you."

"You two come with me." Fowler said motioning to two of the security officers.

She then turned to Noland. "I need you to take me to the mother, and make no mention about what you have seen here."

Noland turned, leading her back to where they had been found as the two security officers followed.

"Jena" he said. "This women would like to talk with you, she is a medical specialist."

Jena looked up at him and then at the women he was talking about.

"Hello Jena, my name Kim." Fowler said "Is it alright if I sit her next to you?"

Jena starred at her, she knew why she was here, Noland had told her what had happened with Megan. "Yes" she said as she lowered her eyes, she felt really bad about what had happened.

"Jena, you have been under a lot of stress, Noland has told me what happened to your daughter. I hope that is alright, he is concerned about you health. I'm concerned about your health."

"It was a accident. I thought it was my daughter laying in my lap, that their had been a mistake and that my daughter was safe. I had only been a dream thou, when I woke up it was Megan in my lap and, I don't know, when I saw it wasn't my daughter I became angry, I realized it was true."

"Jena." Noland said. "Kim, wants to talk to you about you daughter, what happened with Megan was a accident." He realized that Jena had misunderstood why Fowler wanted to talk with her.

Jena, glanced over to Noland then back to Kim, working this over in her mind. He hadn't told her about Megan. She hadn't said much about what had happened, hopefully not enough to make things worse, she wanted to resolve the situation with Megan, she wouldn't let her thou.

* * *

She wanted to know more about the incidents surrounding this dream, but she didn't want to change her focus at this point. She believed it was in the best interest of the mom and her daughter that she continued down this path.

"When a parents child passes away, they are filled with a lot of emotions, the life is no longer what it used to be, in time however they come to accept their child is gone and that they need to move on."

"With you thou, things are different. Your child is still out there somewhere. You believe she is not out of reach, and that makes this even harder for you."

"It is hard." Jena said softly. "I do know, she is out there. I just want to run until I find her."

"Does it scare you what you might find?" Fowler asked. "Knowing that the Borg are the ones who took her from you."

"All the time. I am scared about what they are doing to her. I am worried about how she is dealing with what is happening to her, I don't know if she even knows something is happening to her."

"If you were to go, rescue your daughter and she had been changed by the Borg. I would still take her from that place, their have been others who have been saved that had been altered by the Borg. I would not, I can a not give up on her, she is my daughter."

The conversation was going in the direction that she wanted it to. Under better circumstances she would want a more controlled environment, but these weren't normal circumstances, she had started with only one patient to take care of and now she had two, she had to act in what she thought was the best interest of her patient. The had gotten no where with trying to get even the smallest reaction from the girl, had ran out of ideas.

Then they had come across the girls mother, distraught over her missing daughter, wanting to find her. The two of them could help each other, she decided what she was going to do, this was uncharted territory for her thou. She hoped it didn't make things worse.

"Jena, these security officers that came with me, they are her to make sure you stay here in this corridor." Fowler said.

Jena didn't understand why she was telling her this, she didn't even want to leave the corridor, she didn't want to go anywhere."

"Jena, I need you to work to remain calm, to control your instincts I will not permit you to do anything that will make things worse but I need your help."

Fowler was confusing her, she was already going thru a lot and now she was being lectured to.

"For the last several hours I have been responsible for the care of your daughter."

The amount and strength of the emotions overwhelmed her. She thought she was going to vomit, pass out, scream and numerous other things all at the same time. This had come as such a shock to her system that she found herself unable to get to her daughter, to even move a meter, she was sweating hard yet she was freezing.

Fowler had not been expecting this, she should have, she should have made preparations in case it happened. Even thou it had caught her off guard, she was quick to resolve the situation. She immediately started to revert to her previous state as the contents of the hypospray performed their job.

She would need to take things slower to prevent this from happening again.

* * *

Jena sat there against the corridor wall, alone. She could still feel the effects of the emotions that had filled her. They had decreased considerably however, as a result of the medicine that had been given her thru the hypospray and because she had had time to think since Fowler had told her.

She stood up slowly, she had intended to go find Fowler but it wasn't necessary, Fowler was their before she knew it, she didn't even know from where she had come from.

"Jena, I need you to sit back down you still need rest."

"I can sit down later, I need to see my daughter." Jena responded.

She looked at Jena, she was still showing some of the signs of what had happened to her a little while ago.

"I don't know." Fowler said, it may still be too much for you. I think you should rest a while longer."

"It isn't doing me any good to rest, it is making me feel worse, knowing that she is so close by."

She was on a limb her, so far out that it could snap. Once again she was at a point were she had to take two situations, both of them with a potential of disaster and determine which one was the best course of action. Allowing Jena to see her daughter could be the wrong choice, but forcing Jena to stay here could also be the wrong choice. After she had weighed the pros and cons she determined that they would make another attempt to reunite the two, that alternative seemed to be more likely to make the situation worse.

"Jena I am willing to try this again, you have had more time now to think about it, I am going to warn you before hand this time however your daughter is different then you remember her, she looks different, she acts differently. I have been unable to get any kind of response to stimuli from here, she hasn't said anything since we found her. Her appearance is also different."

Jena was thinking this thru as Fowler was talking, she was worried for her daughter, worried above all else, nothing else would stop her from seeing her daughter, once they allowed her to, but she was a little scared about what she would find when she finally had seen her. "I understand" she said, barely audible.

Jena followed Fowler down the corridor and into the junction, they turned to face another corridor and she saw her, sitting there, next to the corridor wall of the corridor wrapped in a blanket, the volume of reddish her hair had decreased, she had not wanted to believe it, when she said her appearance was different, she had wondered if she would even recognize her daughter anymore, her skin was no longer it's original color it had become greyish.

She slowly knelt down next to her daughter, gazing at her, She felt uneasy, she shouldn't this was her daughter, but she did. As she gazed, seeing thru the changes that had been done to her, she started to see her daughter, she had her fathers nose and her cheeks and chin.

"Cheryl." she said. "It's mom. I would like to talk to you."

She waited, watching her eyes, waiting to see any hint of recognition, looking for any signs of movement. Cheryl just sat there, staring straight ahead, seemingly unaware of what was going on around her.

"Cheryl honey." she said as she took her daughters hand in hers. "I know that you don't know what is happening to you, that you feel different and you don't know why and that you are scared."

She sat down next to her. "I am here to help you. You are with me now."

She was scared! She had seen the implants on her skin, she didn't know what they were, she could feel things changing inside her, she didn't know what was causing those feelings. She turned and looked at the only person she could see that she had ever gone to for guidance, for help and when she was scared.

"Mom?" she said.

"Yes, honey." Jena answered, relief filling her.

"Don't let them take me again."

"I wont Cheryl, I won't"


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

They had made been making slow progress as they worked their way across the exterior of the ship, she wasn't a large ship when compared to some of the other classes but she was still big, the hull was covered with punctures and burn marks, tricorder scans were also showing anti matter residue. None of the breaks in the hull were large enough to cause any immediate threat, the anti matter residue concentration however was going to need to be monitored. They could only assume that the cause of the system failures had been due to something outside the ship, an explosion from another ship it appeared.

* * *

They stood their, talking about their options, she wasn't listening to what they were saying, she often found that the conversation was boring when it was a group of adults talking.

Ever sense she had found out that they had found Cheryl she had steadily been getting improving, she was not back her old self, that would take time but she was doing better. She looked over at her mom who was standing near the others, she wasn't watching her at the moment.

Mrs Shearer had also seen some improvement since they had found Cheryl, thou she still felt guilt and responsibility for what had happened, she was dealing with it better. She did keep her distance from Jena however, she had felt she deserved it when she had attacked her, she still felt that way, but she didn't want it to happen again. She had asked herself plenty of times if she hadn't been punished enough since then for what she had let happen. The pulled her attention back to what the others were saying.

* * *

_Stardate 56875.72_

She found herself looking at her again, she had done so several times now. She didn't look back at her thou, she was usually just staring at her mom. She felt uncomfortable looking at her, but she could not pull her eyes away. She looked back at her mom, then at the others one at a time, none of them were paying her any attention.

She stood up and slowly moved toward the were Cheryl was sitting, as she approached Cheryl turned her head and looked at her. The way her eyes were now, the gray irises surrounding her pupil scared her, but she kept going until she was standing in front of her. She had wanted to talk to her for a while now.

"Cheryl, are you mad at me?" Megan asked after a few moments.

"Why would you think I was mad at you?" Cheryl questioned, keeping her focus on Megan.

"You, usually come to talk to me, whenever you can." she said.

"I didn't even think about it." Cheryl responded. "Is their something that you wanted to talk about?"

Megan was not sure what to say. She was not usually the one to start their conversations, their was nothing specific she wanted to talk to her about, she just wanted to talk to her. "I just wanted to know if you were mad at me and wondered why you hadn't come over to talked to me."

"I see no reason to be mad at you." Cheryl replied.

"I missed you." Megan said suddenly, putting her arms around her friend. She didn't know why she had done it that way, but she had wanted to to tell her that ever sense first seen her after she had been found.

* * *

She had lost track of the conversation, she didn't know what they were currently talking about, she was watching the girls, she couldn't hear what they were saying to each other over the discussion going on.

"Ensign Fowler are you paying attention?" Lieutenant Thompson asked.

She refocused on the conversation. "Sorry Sir."

"We were wondering on Cheryl's status." he said.

She noticed that he had called her by her name, it was happening more and more frequently now that they had learned her name, and that it would only produce positive results the more it continued. Unfortunately it was only one of many factors that needed to be taken into the account on what was providing positive results and what was producing negative results.

She looked over at Jena and back to Thompson before she began, starting with what she felt was the most important. "The nanoprobes have moved into her spinal column and her brain stem, her Adrenal Glands, Kidney's, Pancreas have been replaced. The nanoprobes have also constructed several devices throughout her digestive system."

"Has she attempted to contact the Collective?" Thompson asked.

"I have had a couple the others scanning the subspace domain, but we don't know exactly what type of pattern we are looking for. She is showing less and less emotion when communicating with her but from what I have learned from the tricorder, she isn't exhibiting any the indications that would mean she is in contact with the Collective."

"Ok, have a team organized to find a way to disrupt the type of signals that are used to communicate throughout the Collective, as many frequencies as you can based around the ones that we no they used. We know that if she does attempt to contact the Collective and is unsuccessful she will try to adapt, we need to be ready for that."

Jena just stood their listening, she did not like what she was hearing, was tempted to say something but knew that it would only be in anger and would not be of any help to Cheryl. She may not like what they were saying but they weren't the cause of what was going on. They were trying to help.

* * *

Stardate 56875.73

Michelle Trinity moved anxiously down the corridor, she was getting nowhere near Engineering, if anything she was getting farther away. She felt like her path had been blocked at every turn. She had gone in circles dozens of times as she moved thru the deck, trying every possible way she could, she was at the point that she just wanted to go anywhere that was not on this deck.

The situation was affecting her emotionally, not just her inability to get off the deck but the isolation she was feeling. She had started talking to herself on a frequent basis due to the lack of anyone else to talk to. At first she had stopped when she had caught herself doing it, now however she didn't care that she was doing it. It made her feel better.

She came around the next corner and suddenly stopped, and stood their, she had been thru here before, on more then one occasion, she knew the the layout of the ship. They hadn't been here on her last pass thou, the stood their and just watched, too tired to care.

She sunk to her knees, reaching to her neck out of instinct and covering the two puncture wounds with the palm of her hand. Dark streaks were already spreading from the wounds. The pain only lasted a few moments.

* * *

_Stardate 56875.74_

She suddenly fell to her knees, grabbing the sides of her head, it hurt so bad. "Make it stop" she screamed.

Her mom had already been at her side, "What is going on?" she said loudly trying to locate where Ensign Fowler was.

"Sir we have a problem." she heard one of the security officers say.

"Whatever problem he thinks he has found can't be more important then this." she thought to herself. "Fowler, help" she said, as her daughter continued sitting their holding her head.

She wished it would stop it was hurting her, suddenly it changed, she could still feel it, their were similarities, but where pain had radiated everywhere there was now comfort and peacefulness.

She could see something in the distance, something she now attributed to be a light being held by someone. The nanoprobes had altered they way she was perceiving the events to something less chaotic then what was left of the part of her that was Human part of had, those parts had not understood what was going on, they were still in the process of being assimilated, were in a state between what they had been and what they would become and had responded with pain, one of the methods the Human body used to tell someone that something was wrong.

The light she now saw was big enough to fill the area around her, so bright she thought it would hurt her eyes to look at it. Whoever was holding that light was not moving, just kept it in position covering as as she could see to either side of her. She felt alone, she wanted to find who was holding the light, maybe she should go see who it was.

The edges of the light suddenly began to narrow. She could now see the edges of it to either side of her, they were still a long ways away, but they were moving close to her, they knew she was their now, they just had to pinpoint her exact location, she looked into the center of it again, had narrowed considerably now, maybe she should try and get their attention, suddenly everything went black, the light was gone she was standing their alone.

* * *

She gasped, looking around her, trying to get her bearings, someone was touching her hand, her mind kept spinning as she fell to the ground and passed out for a few moments and then opened her eyes.

"Cheryl, I need you to look at me. "someone was saying. Her eyes were blurry, she blinked a few times to clear them up, she recognized her, it was Ensign Fowler. She was scanning her with a tricorder. Her mom standing next to her with a concerned look at her face.

"What happened?" Cheryl asked, her memories of the event quickly fading from her mind.

Fowler was not quite sure how to answer that. She did not know how the girl had perceived what had happened, she was so far out of her league to begin with when they had found the girl, as she had continue to change all she had been able to do is watch, she wouldn't even keep her sedated which was or should have been simple for most patients especially Human ones. Unfortunately she wasn't Human anymore, at least not completely. "I'm not completely sure." she finally said. "I need to go over these scans, how are you feeling?"

"Like someone had just woken me up in the middle of a dream." she said.

"Was it a good or bad dream?" Fowler asked.

"I wasn't asleep, I couldn't have been dreaming." she said.

* * *

It had been a simple matter to turn it on, to get it to the right frequency of the subspace domain had been the difficult part, they had no way of scanning which one they needed. The state that Cheryl was in, her reactions to what they were attempting were their only way of determining if they had found the correct frequency, if this was even working.

They device had been built haphazardly built from components taken from other parts of the ship, isolinear chips, electrical conduit, cabling, signal modulators and enhancers, parts from a transporter in one of their cargo bays. They idea had seemed sound to those who designed it, in reality they had no idea if it would even do what they needed it to do until they had used it.

Then their was the problem of power, it took a large amount of energy to operate, they had to adapt several phasers to provide the output necessary to make it function, as one would become drained they would need to swap it out and the would need to do it fast, she would once again be susceptible to the Collective while the phaser's were being changed. Then on top of that their was the problem of her Borg systems, in time she would adapt to the jamming, they had only delayed the inevitable.

* * *

He did not know why none of them had thought of it before. It had been frequently talked about that if they did get out of the lab where they would go. At first the had decided on the Observation Lounge. It was the closest area where people may have been taking shelter.

That was before the ship had turned almost completely upside down. No one had even worried about where they were going to go, most of them didn't even think they were going to get out of their. Their were only four of them left, all of the moral was thinking fast even his.

Chris Evans approached the door for the hundredth time it seemed like, an escape pod was only seven meters away at most. It could have been hundreds of meters, unless they got out of here it was totally unreachable.

He knew that their were release systems for the doors, he didn't know how they worked thou. Maintenance teams were usually the only ones who used them. He didn't even know what they looked like. He was sure it was on the same wall that the door was, which panel it was behind thou he didn't know.

He opened one of the closest ones to the door, it was full of all sorts of wires and chips. It could be that the some of the chips had to be removed or swapped with others. It would take hours to go thru any possible combination. He decided to check more of the panels before he would consider spending the time doing that.

Their was a panel directly above the one that he had just checked. He could see a little way into it from the first panel and it looked to be pretty much the same. He moved to the other side of the door deciding to try the ones on this side.


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

Her eyes opened suddenly. They were searching for her still, she was glad they had come back. She didn't know why they had given up earlier but she was not going to let them again, they had been close to finding her.

She started waving her hands back and forth, trying to get the attention of whoever it was, over here she called. The beam narrowed quickly until it was no wider then her.

* * *

"Sir, we have a problem." the Security Officer that was currently responsible for monitoring the subspace domain frequencies said, panic filling his voice.

"What's going on?" Lieutenant Thompson asked as he moved over to him.

"She's adapted to the jamming." he said, alarming Thompson.

"Status report." he called out to another Security Officer who appeared to have been caught off guard also. They had not even gone thru one of the the adapted phasers.

"Can you give me the frequency she is using?"

"I'm trying to isolate it." the first Security Officer said, it's jumping all over the place thou. I think she is using more then one.

"Just give me the highest and lowest frequency that you find, she's modulating the interface trying to stop us from jamming her again." Thompson said.

"That's going to take some time."

Just a few moments ago everything had been calm. It hadn't taken long for that to change however. It hadn't occurred to Thompson, anyone that was scanning for the subspace domain signals or that had constructed the device to block those signals that she would start rotating thru what frequencies she would be using. It should have, they all knew that the Borg had that ability.

It didn't take long for everyone to know something serious was going on, Thompson had spoken louder then he had intended when asking for the status report drawing everyone's and because of the location that had become of the center of attention they had known what the source of the problem was even if they didn't know exactly what the problem was.

Ensign Fowler now squatted next to Cheryl scanning her in shock, the nanoprobes were working faster, she could see changes happening before her eyes. "Sir, we have to get that signal jammed, the assimilation process has accelerated."

Jena, just sat their watching her daughter, fear had reasserted itself. She didn't know what she was looking at, all over her body things were moving under her skin, the site of it brought dread to her mind, she was once again feeling fear of her own daughter. "Whats happening to her?" she said quietly.

Fowler looked from the tricorder to Jena. "She's receiving instructions from the Collective." she replied before realizing who she had said it to, she had been so focused on what she was doing. It was too late to take it back now. "I need that signaled jammed." she called out the the Security Officer working on the device.

Cheryl suddenly stood up, knocking Fowler to the ground. Her mom starred at her, at first she thought they had been able to get the signal jammed again, but only for a few seconds.

Cheryl approached the device, as she reached it tubules extended from the top of her hand and came into contact with it the base of if, piercing it's casing.

Suddenly she was pulled backwards, she turned her head, seeing it was Fowler who had pulled her away from the device, she started to stand up again and to Fowler's surprise she was going to succeed. Her strength must have also increased. "Help me, I can't hold her." she saw someone else take hold of the girl, helping her. She was still trying to get to the device, she wasn't strong enough to break free from both if them however.

"Is it damaged?" Thompson asked.

Fowler had noticed the he had drawn his phaser, he was not about to lose control of this situation any more then he already had.

"No, they pulled her away before she could inject any nanoprobes into it, the only damage is to it's casing." he said. "I am just going give a wide burst along as many frequencies as it can handle, hopefully it will overload her transceiver." he said as he worked. "We are going to need to get out of here whether it works or not, it is going to light this whole area up from their perspective. They are going to know right were we are." He hit a few more buttons and activated the burst, the device burst into flame as the burst spread out from it, causing several of the tricorder's to fluctuate.

Once it came into contact with Cheryl hoped turned to dismay, they didn't know how far the field had spread, their only point of reference until it came into contact with her, and harmlessly moved across the shield that had formed around her protecting her.

* * *

The results of her attempt had arrived back to the collective as fast as the information would travel to someones brain if their hand had come into contact with a hot surface, and their response back just as fast, similar to someone wanting to keep their arm still, most of the process happened automatically, all they would have to do was mentally tell their arm to hold still, once the information had arrived to their arm it would do as it had been told, the collective had given her it's instructions and she would follow those instructions, she was an extremity of them now.

* * *

She suddenly stopped fighting to get to the device. Not that it would matter, the person who had been helping Fowler hold Cheryl had released her a couple of seconds before she had stopped fighting leaving Fowler the only one holding her and she was unable to prevent her from standing completely up. Fowler looked over to see who had been helping her. It was Jena, this was a little surprising to her but she didn't have have a chance to dwell on that thought.

"Their is no need for you to keep hold." Cheryl said, but it didn't completely sound like Cheryl. Her voice had resonated when she spoke.

Fowler didn't release her hold on her, they didn't know what to think, had no idea what to do.

The events of the past couple of days were even having a effect on Thompson. He stood their, staring at her, as many of them were. She didn't move from were she now stood, hadn't said anything else. He knew that she didn't view them as a threat, but he was guessing their was more and he thought he knew what it was, the device she had been after was gone, she no longer needed to destroy it, she was waiting for more drones, she had told them where they were, and even if she hadn't they would still know from the burst emitted when the device exploded."

He was suddenly shocked when she suddenly collapsed to the ground.

"Sir." someone said. He turned to look at the Security Officer who had been scanning the Subspace domain frequencies.

"I found a way to modify the Tricorder to block the range she was using, it's extremely short in range thou."

It took Thompson a few moments to process what he was just told. "We need to move out." he said working to regain his composure, He knew what they had to do now, it was their only chance. They didn't know what the tactical situation was out their and plus if they could get the girl out of range of the ship, they may be able to help her. "We are going to proceed to the shuttle bay, the ship was been lost. I want everyone ready to go in 2 minutes. Fowler you have the girl." He knew Jena was not going to be of any help with her any longer, he had seen her let go of her daughter and now she was as far as she could be from her without going past the outer most Security Officers.

* * *

He jumped back in surprise as the door opened a couple of meters. He didn't really think this idea would work. To many things had gone wrong with everything else they had tried, he didn't know why he hadn't just given up like the others in the room, they had just sat their, sometimes watching him, but never coming to help and he didn't blame them.

Now however they were filled with a sense of some hope, they moved into the corridor on time. It was totally empty. Chris Evans tried to access the computer interface outside the lab and found it unresponsive, due to that and the emergency lighting in the corridor he came tot he conclusion that she problem was at least deck wide and since they had not been rescued probably ship wide since their had been no rescue attempt

He hoped that they were able to access one of the escape pods that were nearby. They moved down the corridor coming to the first one. Whatever had cause the issue with the systems did not appear to have affected the escape pods, the one that had come to was working.

They proceed to enter the escape pod, entering instructions to fly straight out away from the ship, he had no idea what coordinates they were at, he just hoped they were not so far away from somewhere they could be rescued.

He watched as the escape pod moved away from the ship, wondering if his family had gotten off, if they were ok. Soon it was just a small point, barely larger then any of the stars around it, and then it was gone from view.

* * *

_Stardate 56875.98_

They moved along the corridor, they had not stopped since they had started moving again. They could not risk it. They knew that they were out here, they may not know where but they would in time, they had to hurry, it was a race against time.

Jena stood back a ways from her daughter, not as far as she had been before but still a ways back, Fowler had taken note of this and found it a good sign that she was at least coming closer to Cheryl.

She had regained consciousness, and it had made it easier to determine her condition but she was not sure if it was in her best interest or if it was safe. Her connection with the Collective had been severed, it had only been brief but the nanoprobes had accelerated their work during the time she was connected and they had learned she had gained increased strength, personal shields and probably other enhancements they were not aware of.

She had been upset when she had first regained consciousness that she was no longer connected to the Collective, sometimes she would blame them for removing her, other times she would blame the Borg for allowing or for not coming to get her. She had made it clear she was not going to be leaving the ship with them and it had made her even more upset when she had been told she wasn't being given a choice. Since then she hadn't said anything. Fowler believed that if she was given the opportunity she would try and separate herself from them forcing her to increase the number of security personnel nearby.

It was a good thing they were their because she wouldn't have been able to deal with what happened next without them nearby. Someone moved quickly by her and before she knew it Cheryl was on the ground, once she had overcome the initial surprise she saw that Jena had knocked her daughter to the ground.

"Give me my daughter back." she was screaming at Cheryl.

She moved to pull Jena off her daughter, the security personal were already taking control of the situation however and had pulled Jena off her. And Jena was lucky, she may not have noticed but Fowler had once Jena was out of the way, Cheryl tubules were visible, she had intended to use them on her mother, she now knew that enhancements was available to her when she was not connected to the Collective, she would have to keep a closer eye on her when she was near here.

She walked up to Jena. "Do you have any idea how lucky you are, she almost injected nanoprobes into you?"

Jena just gave her a angry look.

"Restrainer her, and don't allow her near her daughter." Fowler said.

"That thing is not my daughter." Jena replied back as they moved her toward the back of the group.

Fowler was disgusted, she didn't believe she would treat her own daughter that way if she had had one no matter what.

"You ok?" she asked Cheryl as she returned to her.

Cheryl didn't say anything, she just stared at her mom.

"Let's go." Fowler said, were almost there.

Cheryl turned and followed the others.

Within ten minutes they had arrived at the shuttle bay, they were able to open she doors with little effort, the tricorder scans showed that the mechanism that kept the door secure one one side had been damaged, completely severed thru the wall into the corridor.

Once they entered the Shuttle Bay, that is when the concern increased. One of the shuttle was completely upside down, their was damage to one of the engines that without even a tricorder you could tell was extensive.

The other shuttle was in better condition, it was lying at a angle however and was not aligned with the outer doors. Diagnostic checks showed that the shuttle had power and was capable of limited warp, the weapons systems were offline however and they would need to reorient it inside the shuttle bay using it's thrusters. Their was not a lot of room with the other shuttle craft sitting the way it was.

They began entering the shuttle as Thompson went to the emergency controls near the outer door, he was having some difficulty reaching it.

"I am not going with you." Cheryl said suddenly.

"I told you your not giving you any choice." Fowler said.

Cheryl moved towards her but she had been expecting this and pulled out her phase. It caused little pause in her however. "You won't use that on me." she said as she kept approaching her.

"Don't be so sure, what you were going to do to your mom is inexcusable, you have become a bigger threat then I had thought possible. If you come any closer I will use this on you."

This caused Cheryl to stop. Based on what Fowler had just said their was a possibility she would use the phaser on her. "I will find a way to come back." she said.

Fowler ignored her statement, get into the shuttle and don't touch anyone, take a seat in the back by yourself, I will be their in a few minutes. She then approached Thompson who was standing at the emergency controls.

"I am putting you in command, you need to get them to safety." Thompson said.

"What are you talking about?"

"I will be able to open the doors but the external shield over the out door is offline. We were going to need to open it manually, but once I do without that shield the shuttle bat will immediately decompress."

"You won't survive." she said.

He just looked at her. She nodded without saying anything else and returned to the shuttle. "Prepare to leave." she said to the security officer who had sat at the pilot controls.

"What about the Lieutenant he asked."

"The external shield around the door is non functional and the door needs to be opened manually, now follow my orders."

He nodded, understanding the problem and the solution that Thompson had come up with.

She took a seat near Cheryl at the rear of the shuttle.

"Everyone hold on the pilot said as the door to the shuttle closed."

A few moments the latter she shuttle shook as it was thrown into one of the walls of the shuttle bay, after the initial large jolt, the rest were small as the pilot moved the shuttle into position and moved it outside the ship.

Once they had cleared the ship they moved to impulse and with a few moments they jumped to warp. They could see the ship behind them as they departed and only one of them did. Cheryl sat their, trying to find a way that she could return their, she intended to no matter how long it took.


	10. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_Stardate 59796.15 -Three Years Later_

She stood their looking out the window, it was huge. She still was fascinated about what it would have taken to build it. Star ships filled several of the docking ports. She loved it up here, watching everything that happened, it was always busy out there always something new.

She could see the ship her parents and brother were on. They would be leaving soon, her dad had been so exited about this new assignment, it was his first deep space assignment in a long time, it had been a long time for her too, she had not been this far from Earth in years, and now she would spend the next two on board a star ship, not as long as her dad but still it would be a long time, she planned to enjoy as much of it as she could. They would be out near Romulan space mostly in the Celes and Argelius sector.

She watched as the moorings retracted from the ship they were on, it slowly moved away from the space dock and started moving away, once it had was far enough away it jumped to warp, she watched the flash in the distance that always followed after a ship jumped to warp, she then turned. "It would be a couple of more hours before their ship departed. "She thought to herself. "She would come back up to watch again then."

Cheryl then left the forward observation lounge. It had been so long, she couldn't wait to see what was out there.

**To be continued...**


End file.
